I disagree. Cheap, mandatory licensing for copyrighted orphan and unavailable works. The author gets paid, but you cannot subtract knowledge from the Human corpus of knowledge, and you'll get better rates for keeping your own version available.

I like the idea of statutory licensing is a great idea, along with shorter copyrights for a fixed term. We've gone though this before, I don't believe in lifetime copyrights, UK rules are the UK's buisness but in the US I read "limited Times" to mean a maximum fixed time I've advocated 56 years time and time again but if say the law was amended to say life plus blah but not to exceed 95 years (the current too long time of corporate copyright.) I'd still argue for shorter times but I'd at least feel the law was more in line with the constitutional requirement of limited times.

Also I'm starting to think copyright is itself a misleading word, distributionright might be more apt. If I littered my house with piles of photocopies of copyrighted material or with hard drives filled with millions of copies of the same copyrighted file I can't think of any reason why I should fall afowl of any copyright law. Considering the near universal dislike for DRM on these board most seem to agree that the making of copies isn't the issue.

I can understand having a reasonable period of time to conclude contract negotionations, movie deals, and the like. And I can understand why publishers would want a reasonable period of time to make their money back.

What I can't see is allowing publishers a lifetime plus 70 years to make their share.
20 - 25 years, allowing extension for 5 year period, file fee for the extension should double every time its used. So if the first extension is $5k, the second would be 10k, the third 20k, etc. Quickly reaching the point where it is not worthwhile for most books.

Why do you believe that someone should have to pay to retain the rights to their own property?

What rights? When you make a bookshelf, and sell it, you retain no rights about its use. It can be copied by anyone who wants to go to the effort to do so. If I paint my house white with blue trim and green accents, anyone else can copy my paint scheme. However, if I write an eight-word poem or epigraph, I can legally prevent anyone else from using it.

Written, musical, and flat-painted works are treated *differently* from other creative works. They're given a "property" right that doesn't exist for other works. Why shouldn't they have to pay to maintain it?

I think the reason it's fair to expect works to eventually revert to the public domain is because authors don't create their works strictly from their own selves but they are influenced by and borrow from, a common pool of culture, therefore one of the rationales behind the public domain is that eventually their work returns to that common pool so others can draw from it just as they drew from the work of others who came before. For example, do you think JK Rowling was the first to come up with a story about a young boy who discovers a secret world, battles a nefarious bad guy and has a transformative journey? Of course not. The quest story is as old as stories themselves. Now, she does deserve the opportunity to profit from her particular interpretation and her own creative labours. But eventually, it should go back into the same pool of culture that she herself drew from when she created it.

I think the reason it's fair to expect works to eventually revert to the public domain is because authors don't create their works strictly from their own selves but they are influenced by and borrow from, a common pool of culture, therefore one of the rationales behind the public domain is that eventually their work returns to that common pool so others can draw from it just as they drew from the work of others who came before.

Oh, I completely agree with you. What I dislike is the suggestion that an author should have to pay for those rights, rather than being granted them automatically.

Oh, I completely agree with you. What I dislike is the suggestion that an author should have to pay for those rights, rather than being granted them automatically.

Why? We pay for police, courts, schools, road, and all other public goods. In America, when the land was formally claimed, you had to pay for surveying, among other things. Even under the Homestead Act, you had to improve the property within 5 years in order to keep the claim.

If you want to claim an economic benefit from your creation, you should have to pay. Nobody complains about the cost of patent filings, they aren't just handed out free. Why is copyright so special...

Pre-Berne (1978) in the US, if you wanted a copyright you had to file for it, (just like making a claim on a piece of property), so that everyone could see that this piece of Intellectual Property was defined (you submitted a copy so there was no question what piece of I.P. was involved) and reserved for private economic use. Nowadays I can't just pitch out a Red story, and know it's going to fall into the public domain. I have to stamp Public Domain on it!, just so that cheap people can have I.P. lottery tickets!

Pre-Berne (1978) in the US, if you wanted a copyright you had to file for it, (just like making a claim on a piece of property), so that everyone could see that this piece of Intellectual Property was defined (you submitted a copy so there was no question what piece of I.P. was involved) and reserved for private economic use. Nowadays I can't just pitch out a Red story, and know it's going to fall into the public domain. I have to stamp Public Domain on it!, just so that cheap people can have I.P. lottery tickets!

The problem isn't with stories, which maybe should be copyrighted without a registration requirement. (I'm fond of the "attach a copyright notice to the work & it's copyrighted" approach.) The problem is that every letter, email, forum comment & greeting card inscription is now copyrighted for L+70; you can't *archive* our culture without tripping over copyright law.

Nevermind the books and paintings and photographs, which could, presumably, be in the marketplace earning their creators some money. It's the kids' sketches on refrigerators which are un-copyable for another 150 years that are the problem. It's the margin notes teachers make on homework, which can't be included in a book about modern education without getting permission from each & every teacher. It's the funny office memos that nobody knows or cares who wrote--except now, sharing it around requires a name and permission, and nobody wants to admit to writing "10 ways a toilet is better than my boss."

The problem isn't with stories, which maybe should be copyrighted without a registration requirement. (I'm fond of the "attach a copyright notice to the work & it's copyrighted" approach.) The problem is that every letter, email, forum comment & greeting card inscription is now copyrighted for L+70; you can't *archive* our culture without tripping over copyright law.

Nevermind the books and paintings and photographs, which could, presumably, be in the marketplace earning their creators some money. It's the kids' sketches on refrigerators which are un-copyable for another 150 years that are the problem. It's the margin notes teachers make on homework, which can't be included in a book about modern education without getting permission from each & every teacher. It's the funny office memos that nobody knows or cares who wrote--except now, sharing it around requires a name and permission, and nobody wants to admit to writing "10 ways a toilet is better than my boss."

Me, Me, ME.... I want to claim full and complete control over the toilet joke....

More seriously, the problem is that copyright law is backward to all other property rights. There is no automatic "it's mine" to any other type of property. Every other type required effort to invoke, and effort to transfer. I get a receipt when I buy my bag of lemon drops precisely to show the change of ownership. And that receipt is not free!!!. It's part of the costs of the store, just like salaries, stock cost, and property taxes for the location.

So why is copyright so &@#$ SPECIAL??? It isn't I.P., per se, both Patent and Trademark require work to invoke and maintain. Just copyright. Because we all have to pay with the loss of our culture over time just so creative people can have an free I.P. lottery ticket? <Bleep> it, buy your own lottery tickets! You want copyright, then file the puppy! And of you don't file it, you lose it!

So why is copyright so &@#$ SPECIAL??? It isn't I.P., per se, both Patent and Trademark require work to invoke and maintain. Just copyright. Because we all have to pay with the loss of our culture over time just so creative people can have an free I.P. lottery ticket? <Bleep> it, buy your own lottery tickets! You want copyright, then file the puppy! And of you don't file it, you lose it!

I like automatic coverage without need to register for some things (although I prefer them to have to be at least labeled); requiring formal registration before any protection kicks in is a great way for small artists to get screwed over by big companies. Big companies can file registrations of all their new works quarterly; authors who are midway through writing a novel can't get it registered until they're done (certainly can't afford to pay to register each chapter as it's finished)--and if the book gets stolen before then (or their computer gets borrowed & the files are released online) they lose their legal rights.

However, I'd love to see "everything [with a notice] is copyrighted for 10 years," followed by a mandatory registration to extend that. You get enough time to find out if it's financially valuable before you have to invest in it; corporations will register everything as a matter of course, and individuals will decide after graduation if their college research papers or film projects contained enough fascinating insights to bother keeping control over them.

More seriously, the problem is that copyright law is backward to all other property rights.

Except it isn't, to other IP rights.

Ever wonder why many trademarks are marked (TM)? That's because they're not registered. A registered trademark (R/®/registered) has been paid for, but you can register after the infringement has started and still assert your rights. Design rights, where they exist, function in the same way.

Trade secrets? Whole point is they're not "registered", they're generated in the normal course of business, just like copyright!

FWIW I know it's true in Canada -- only the uploader is breaking the law. And as yet every MP3 related case I've heard of in the states has been against a file-sharer, not someone who has downloaded but not uploaded.

The person distributing the file certainly is the one that would be on the hook for damages. In the states it is a copyright violation to download copyrighted material.

However if law enforcement set up a site it would most likely be deemed entrapment. So while d/ling copyright materials is a violation only those distributing(sharing/selling) those copies are likely to be prosecuted.

Oh, I completely agree with you. What I dislike is the suggestion that an author should have to pay for those rights, rather than being granted them automatically.

First off no one who makes money doing anything does it cost free. Why should authors be special? Everyone else has fees, taxes, overhead, something.

You want to make 50k of a novel, fine, pay 500 up front and your protected.

Second, how many authors are self published, big name stuff?
They all sell those rights to publishers. So Publishers would be in the hot seat, deciding if they can make enough off the books to be worth paying the extension. Their choice, go or no go, will it pay or won't it?

You want to tie the extension to 10% of how much that book has earned to date, fine by me. Heck you can even set it up for 2 year deferment, and pro rate it out as a % of sales.

But, keep it short, and if someone wants to lock a book up for 50 years, make them PAY through the nose for it.

If the copyright fee were not paid before the book went to the publisher, would the author not then lack recourse against the publisher if they copyrighted it in their own name and didn't pay a dime to the author?

Remember, the author no longer owns any copyright on the book under this scheme, so it wouldn't be copyright infringement.